US Brain Drain – CleanTechnica

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With all kinds of disruptions in the US since Donald Trump took office, there’s reportedly a serious case of “brain drain” underway in the country. We’ve had reports of it even from some of our readers, but there are broader stories out there of professors and students at universities and research institutes leaving or looking to leave the States, and there’s also reportedly less interest in coming to the US from foreigners in higher education and research fields.

For one, there’s the growing hostility and barriers to foreigners, even Europeans — which have historically had strong ties to the US. It’s riskier than ever to be a non-citizen in the US. Additionally, there’s been massive defunding of all kinds of scientific endeavors under the Trump administration and Elon Musk’s “DOGE.”

There’s already severe targeting of climate science and biomedical science. It’s apparently not acceptable, or “fraud,” to be researching the climate we all rely on to live comfortably in this universe, and who needs medical advancements that go against some Christian ideologies?

This is even affecting research collaborations with universities in other countries, collaborations which are often pathways to student exchange and broader research. “It’s been evident since Trump’s inauguration that the US, as we knew it, is over. I’ve been looking at some of the US-centred organisations and economic dependencies that will need to be rebuilt. But I hadn’t given much thought to the university sector, where I work, until I got an urgent email asking everyone at the University of Queensland to advise the uni admin if we had any projects involving US funding,” John Quiggin writes. “It turns out that Australian participants in such projects had received demands from the US to respond, at short notice, to a questionnaire asking if anything they were doing violated any of the long list of Trump taboos: contacts with China, transgender issues, persecution of Christians and so on.” Indeed….

Unfortunately, the implications even here are already serious. “Taken in the broader context of the Trump dictatorship, this means the end of international research collaboration involving the US. That will be a huge blow to global research of all kinds.” Australia research institutes are reportedly turning to European collaborations in place of that instead.

Quiggin highlights, as well, that the US can’t be a center for major conferences while blocking US entry for a growing number of foreigners, and making it risky for people from other countries to be in the United States. (Who wants to end up in Guantanamo Bay for being a demonized brown person from South America who dared step foot in the USA?) “Research funding is only the first stage in the story. As Trump closes off travel from much of the world, holding major conferences in the US will become intellectually indefensible, if not physically impossible. In my own field of economics, the central role in the job market played by American meetings will need to end. The central role of US journals will last a bit longer, but can’t be tolerated indefinitely.”

Quiggin also highlights the need to shift research that is being politically targeted outside the US, to countries that more genuinely support scientific progress. “The areas under most immediate attack are biomedical research, where the US currently funds about $100 billion a year and climate science, about $15 billion a year. Finding this kind of money, along with a defence buildup, will be politically painful, but it is certainly feasible economically. And the long-term payoff to achieving a dominant position in biomedical research will be huge.” Perhaps we can still fund some of that research in the US? Maybe we don’t have to go full-tilt to the Dark Ages?

Maybe there’s a bit of an extreme reaction in parts here, but the sad thing is, it’s hard to know! The ridiculous, harmful, immoral, uncompassionate, and anti-scientific actions of this administration have been so extreme that it’s hard to know how far it can go, especially since we’re just in March 2025! And, rightfully, one has to think and plan ahead on these things.

“Academics are a mobile bunch, and there will lots of them looking to get out of the US, even with lower salaries and, initially, constraints on infrastructure. In any case, they may have little choice.” Unfortunately, that’s true. We just don’t know how far this anti-science agenda will go.